MOSCOW -- It shattered windows and injured thousands, but to plenty of people in the central Russian region of Chelyabinsk, the powerful meteorite explosion that rocked the area last week was more than a disaster. It was a cash cow. As service workers and volunteers continue to work around the clock to fix thousands of windows shattered by the shock waves from the explosion, many of their friends and neighbors are taking time off from work and school to look for parts of the meteorite that are believed to be scattered all over the region.

The Baltic state of Estonia on Saturday became the first former Soviet republic to ditch the once-mighty ruble and introduce its own national currency. The Estonian government hopes the historic move will give Estonians a stronger sense of freedom. Estonia won its independence nine months ago after 50 years of Soviet rule.

In a nationally televised show of unruffled resolve, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed Thursday to protect an increasingly anxious country from a return to economic chaos. Putin used a congress of his ruling United Russia party to expound on the country's financial well-being, cutting an image of a strong, self-assured and focused leader.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., the biggest drug maker in Eastern Europe, said it will suspend production at its five Russian plants for 20 days beginning Christmas Day, because the slumping Russian ruble has slashed consumers' purchasing power. "Our warehouses are filled with medicine that can't be sold," said company spokesman Sergei Korol. The ruble has tumbled 69% since August, and Korol said distributors owe ICN $34 million for previous supplies.

The Soviet Union soon will auction foreign exchange for the first time as a first step toward making the ruble convertible, a top Soviet banker said in an interview published Thursday. "We're clearing up final technical problems," Juri Moskovsky, chairman of the Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs (Vneshekonombank), told Pravda. "I think it will take place in the near future; we would like it in May. "With the help of this channel, enterprises which work only on the domestic market will have access to foreign currency," he said.

Yeltsin's visit to the U.S. was a public relations trip to raise money for Russia. President Bush's request for a blank check to prop up the ruble is now before Congress. As an American taxpayer I say to Congress: "No problem! Let's show them our presses print dollars faster than their presses churn out rubles!" So what if we prop up a regime with nearly the same cast of characters, and forget the late Andrei Sakharov's warning that "aid to the Kremlin is like pouring water into sand."

Panicked Soviets besieged savings banks from the Baltics to Siberia today and tried to sell each other wads of rubles after the government announced it was taking big bills out of circulation. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in a decree Tuesday night that 50- and 100-ruble bills--worth $90 and $100 at the official rate--will be taken out of circulation within three days and that savings-account withdrawals will be severely limited.

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, fearing that strikes could shatter his reforms, delivered billions of rubles in back wages to industrial hot spots Tuesday and urged oil workers to hold out despite hardship. "We all must make sacrifices, but there is a sense to it," Yeltsin said in an appeal to energy workers. "If we hold out, we can stabilize the economy." Russian Television said that Moscow eased the strike threat in Siberia's Kuzbass coal fields by delivering 4 billion rubles in wages.

Strip malls in Russia? Forget for a moment the growing poverty in Moscow, widespread inflation, the nation's $56 billion in foreign debt. Never mind that Boris N. Yeltsin is fighting for his political life with the future of his radical economic reforms hanging in the balance. Mall developers, among the more visionary of entrepreneurs, are taking to the golf courses in Moscow and talking deals. Kmarts. Neighborhood strip centers. Discount clubs. Barry M. Klein of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Money or no money, Eduard Strizhev wanted his Porsche. Stocks were collapsing downtown; the airwaves groaned with grim economic news; Russian finances teetered on the back of slumping oil prices and a global credit crunch. But why dwell on dreariness? Strizhev and his wife strolled serenely over the polished floors of the Porsche showroom, signed a few papers and drove off in their brand new Cayenne. Sure, Strizhev's accounting firm drew fewer clients this month.

She STRUTS into the Ivy with leg to spare and a long ponytail swinging behind her. She's working a super short, silver polka-dot dress, which she designed herself, and some seriously gooey lip gloss. She's got a makeup artist in tow, along with two publicists and a bodyguard who's not afraid to stand down Robertson Boulevard's crazy roller dancer. Is it Paris? Miley? Ivanka?

THE painting exudes the sweet softness of idyllic village life: A mother, towel wrapped around her head, braids her daughter's hair while a young woman draws a red comb through her own tresses. A girl in a dark dress carries a samovar for tea, a little girl drinks from a white cup, and a cat makes its presence known. Yuri Kugach, 90, still remembers the inspiration for one of his most famous paintings.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov invented a new unit of currency: "That thing you are not allowed to say." Russia's parliament is in the process of adopting a law that will fine government ministers for expressing amounts in dollars instead of rubles. Telling reporters about a contract to supply fighter aircraft to Venezuela, Ivanov said the deal had "a value of more than 1 billion of that thing that you are not allowed to say anymore."

A few weeks ago, she was an unemployed factory worker scraping by with her equally jobless husband and two sons in a three-room apartment in the rump end of the Russian federation. Today, she might well be the wealthiest woman in all of the republic of Bashkortostan. And, unlike many seriously rich "new Russians" nowadays, Nadezhda Mukhametzyanov can say she came by her money honestly.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., the biggest drug maker in Eastern Europe, said it will suspend production at its five Russian plants for 20 days beginning on Christmas Day because the slumping Russian ruble has slashed consumers' purchasing power. "Our warehouses are filled with medicine that can't be sold," said company spokesman Sergei Korol. "Consumer spending has dropped and the distribution system has collapsed."

Russia's new government proposed printing money to pay wages that are overdue, but no decision on increasing the money supply will be made until the Central Bank's new board of directors is in place, Chairman Viktor V. Gerashchenko said. The board is scheduled for a confirmation vote in parliament today. Meanwhile, the head of the centrist Our Home Is Russia party, Alexander N. Shokhin, was named deputy prime minister in charge of financial issues.

Lithuania on Thursday replaced the old Soviet ruble with coupons as a transitional step toward reintroducing its own national currency, the lit, at an unspecified later date. The coupons were already in circulation alongside the ruble and were equal in value to the ruble. But now stores and other businesses no longer accept rubles, and the coupons' value will be allowed to float.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., the biggest drug maker in Eastern Europe, said it will suspend production at its five Russian plants for 20 days beginning Christmas Day, because the slumping Russian ruble has slashed consumers' purchasing power. "Our warehouses are filled with medicine that can't be sold," said company spokesman Sergei Korol. The ruble has tumbled 69% since August, and Korol said distributors owe ICN $34 million for previous supplies.

Rebecca Baldridge's dream world disintegrated this summer, swiftly and stunningly. Gone is the swish three-bedroom apartment along the Moscow River, weekends in London and dinners at exclusive restaurants without a glance at the bill. Like thousands of other once highly paid foreigners who came to cash in on Russia's booming financial markets, her working life came apart when the Russian economy nose-dived. Fresh from business school at Purdue University, Baldridge had set her sights on Russia.